The discovery of a practical route across the Blue
Mountains opened the interior of Australia, first to exploration and secondly
to settlement. Often the early settler was himself an explorer; for, whilst
the names of some men who undertook long and hazardous journey with the
specific object of investigation stand out on the records of history, there
were hundreds who contributed to the work of discovery by the process of
seeking for good pasturage and water-courses. A great void continent wherein
there was not a yard of cultivated land beyond the limits of the small
east-coast colony and its few offshoots, awaited revelation. that it was a
continent was now known; Flinders had shattered the theory that it was a group
of islands. but little more than that was known till after 1813. An area of
2,983,200 square miles, full of incalculable possibilities, lay, as it had
lain for an eternity, remote and unavailable, the inviolate sanctuary of
'cenotaphs of species dead elsewhere.'

Early image of Australian kangaroos

George Evans, the Deputy Surveyor-General, showed
what might be expected when, following up the path cleared by Blaxland,
Lawson, and Wentworth, he discovered the Macquarie and Lachlan Rivers watering
the rich Bathurst Plains. In 1815 the town of Bathurst was founded, the first
inland town in Australia. governor Macquarie utilised convict labour to
construct a good road across the mounts to this new centre of activity. From
this time commenced a series of explorations which rapidly revealed the inland
geography of the continent. the first important name in the story is that of
John Oxley. He was a naval officer who had secured the Surveyor-Generalship on
the recommendation of Flinders, and who, being young and energetic, was not
content to confine himself to his Sydney office, but desired to take the lead
in discovery. The problem to which he directed his attention was the course of
the two rivers which had been named after the Governor, the Lachlan and the
Macquarie. They rose in the Blue Mountains; Evans had traced them for a few
miles; they ran westerly; but whither? It took over twenty years fully to
discover that these, and a wonderful spread of watercourses of which they
formed part, were contributors to the immense basin of the Murray, which, with
its principal tributary the Darling, makes one of the great river-systems of
the world.

On his journey of 1817 Oxley followed the windings of
the Lachlan for hundreds of miles over a dead level plain, through shallow,
reedy lagoons, and finally to a point where the river became a succession of
stagnant pools leading to a mere damp depression in the earth. The volume of
water which had borne hiss boats in the upper reaches had been sucked up by
the spongy soil before it reached the Murrumbidgee. Oxley had, in fact, made
an astonished acquaintance with that strange phenomenon of Australia, where
nature starts many a fine river but gives it no firm channel wherein to flow,
so that the water evaporates from the intense heat of the plains, or
percolates into the earth and perhaps helps to fill those subterranean
cauldrons of rock which modern pastoralists have learnt to tap with artesian
bores. In the watershed of the Macquarie, which was explored after the
baffling adventures on the Lachlan, Oxley found 'a country of running waters,
on every hill a spring and in every valley a rivulet.' The prospects were so
inviting that he led a second expedition to investigate this river in 1818.
But here again a broad, deep, vigorously flowing stream flattered the
travellers at the beginnings of their journey, and mocked them by disappearing
after carrying their boats for about a hundred and fifty miles. It flowed over
a great plain, maintained its current through a chain of sprawling pools, and
then, as Oxley recorded, 'without any previous change in the breadth, depth,
and rapidity of the stream, and when I was sanguine in his expectation of soon
entering the long-sought-for lake, it all at once eluded our further pursuit
by spreading at all points from north-west to north-east over the plains of
reed that surrounded us, the river decreasing in depth from upwards of twenty
feet to less than five feet and flowing over a bottom of tenacious blue mud.'

Sydney, Australia

On his return journey to Sydney across the Liverpool
Plains, Oxley and his party crossed twelve rivers, including he Castlereagh
and the Namoi (or Peel). the whole of them had their origin on the west side
of the mountains, and flowed inland. What became of them on occasions when
their channels carried a full flood of water through their entire length,
instead of losing it on the way, was still an unsolved enigma. Oxley, who had
been accompanied by Allan Cunningham, the botanist, and by Evans, had
completed the longest land journey yet achieved in Australia, a very
adventurous and difficult place of work, much of it in rough country, all of
it in country previously untravelled by Europeans. The discovery of these
rich, well-watered plains beyond the mountains opened a new realm. It was now
certain that for 500 miles west of Sydney there was land where great flocks
and herds could pasture and large communities of people could thrive. From
this time the attitude of the British government towards free settlement in
Australia changed. Before the journeys of Evans and Oxley the official
disposition had not been encouraging. New South Wales was a penal colony first
and foremost, and, as we have seen, Macquarie during his long governorship
cared far more about the welfare of the convicts and emancipists than about
free colonists. He frankly disliked what he called 'gentlemen settlers,' who
wanted concessions and were often vexatiously critical. He grumbled that it
had become a constant practice 'for persons who wish to get rid of some
troublesome connections to obtain permission from the Secretary of State's
office for their being allowed to come out here.' Let them stay in England; he
did not want them. The Government in England, too, required 'satisfactory
testimonials and recommendations from persons of known respectability' before
granting permission to persons to emigrate to New South Wales.

But the discoveries on the far side of the mountains
changed the point of view entirely. As soon as the news reached England a
fresh policy was inaugurated. The Government not only threw down the barriers
but began to advertise the attractions of New South Wales as a field for
immigration. Newspaper and magazine articles frequently appeared which
enlarged upon the opportunities presented by the wonderful, new, unoccupied
dominion, where land grants could be obtained so easily
and where a small capital would secure for a man a greater stretch of broad
acres than were owned by many a prosperous English squire. A new era had
dawned. In 1818 Lord Sidmouth said in the House of Commons, 'the dread of
transportation had almost entirely subsided, and had been succeeded by a
desire to emigrate to New South Wales.' Proofs of the change were of frequent
occurrence. The emigrant ship as well as the convict transport became familiar
in Port Jackson. Australia came to be looked upon as a land of hope and
promise instead of as an abode of despair. this great and striking difference
was made by the discovery of the plains across the Blue Mountains. The inflow
of immigrants necessitated a change of policy in the classification of
convicts. It was evidently desirable to keep Sydney as free as possible from
characters who would be likely to give trouble. consequently it was desirable
to find a place along the coast where an establishment might be formed for the
handling of bad cases.

Sydney Harbour Bridge (under construction)

In search of such a place, John Oxley in 1823 went
north in the Mermaid. He examined Port Curtis, but did not think it
suitable. On his return he anchored at Moreton Bay, and there, to his great
surprise, met a white man named Pamphlet, who for several weeks had been
living with a tribe of aboriginals. Pamphlet had been one of a boat's crew who
had been blown out to sea and wrecked on Moreton Island. One of his four
companions had died of thirst, a second had started to tramp to Sydney, whilst
the third, Finnegan, was at the time when Oxley met Pamphet out hunting with
the chief of the aboriginal tribe, who had treated the white men with great
kindness. On the following day Oxley met Finnepan. From these two men he
learned of the existence of a large river falling into Moreton Bay. they had
crossed it, and were the discoverers of it. Oxley, guided by Finnegan,
examined it for some miles from the mouth, and, congratulating himself on the
finding of the largest fresh-water river on the east coast of New South Wales,
named it the Brisbane after the Governor.

In the following year, 1824, was founded upon the
banks of the Brisbane a new colony expressly for the punishment of convicts
who, since they had been in New South Wales, had been convicted of further
crimes and sentenced to transportation for them. In 1825 the river was
explored for 150 miles by Major Lockyer, who showed how fertile was the soil
in the interior. 'Nothing,' he wrote in his journal, 'can possibly excel the
fine rich country we are now in.' A touch of humanity in Major Lockyer's
journal deserves remembrance. He had maintained friendly relations with
aboriginals whom he met, and, on taking his departure, desired to purchase a
handsome puppy which one of them had in his arms. 'I offered a small axe for
it. His companion urged him to take it, and he was about to do so when he
looked at his dog, and the animal licked his face, which settled the business.
He shook his head, determined to keep it. I tried him afterwards with
handkerchiefs of glaring colours and other things, but it would not do - he
would not part with his dog. I gave him, however, the axe and the
handkerchief.'

Early in 1824, governor Brisbane, desiring to obtain
information about the country to the south of Sydney -- that is, the part now
known as Victoria - conceived the strange idea of landing a party of convicts
near Wilson's Promontory or Cape Howe, providing them with equipment for a
long journey, and directing them to make the best of their way to the shores
of Port Jackson. If they arrived safely they were to receive 'suitable rewards
and indulgences.' If they died on the way that would be their misfortune. But
he was dissuaded from this plan, and instead of it he gave some assistance to
an expedition led by Messrs. Hume and Hovell.

The party started from Hime's residence at Lake
George in October 1824, crossed the rivers Murrumbidgee, Hume (Murray),
Mitta-Mitta, Ovens, and Goulburn and reached the western arm of Port Philliip
near the site of Geelong. They made a mistake as to their whereabouts, and
upon their return a report was published from information supplied by them
wherein it was stated that they had reached Westernport. the mistake was of
some importance when in 1826 governor Darling sent out the expedition to
occupy Westernport in suspicion that the French under Dumont D'Urville
intended to do so. Messrs. Hume and Hovell had traversed excellent country,
and, had their report indicated that it lay to the west of Port Phillip, the
expedition of 1826 would undoubtedly have been directed to settle there
instead of at Westernport, where, after investigation, the conditions were not
deemed to be suitable for permanent occupation. Quite a different verdict
would have been returned had the expedition directed more of its attention to
Port Phillip. It is very curious to observe how little was known in 1825 of
the work of the earlier explorers. When Brisbane received the report of
Messrs. Hume and Hovell he wrote to London: 'It is my intention, as soon as I
have the means, to send a colonial vessel to Westernport to have it explored,
as it seems to have escaped Flinders and others.' The governor was wholly
unaware that the port was discovered by Bass in 17th, and that it had since
been thoroughly explored and mapped by Murray, Grant, Barrallier, and Robbins,
in the first decade of the century.

Pennington Gardens, Adelaide, Australia

Allan Cunningham, not less keen as an explorer than
as a botanist, fought his way across the Liverpool Range in 1827, penetrated
the Darling Downs, and discovered the Gwydir, the Dumaresq, and the Condamine
rivers. where did they flow? Between the Condamine in the north and the
Goulburn in the south was a distance as great as from the Orkneys to Lands
End. Nobody suspected that all the intervening rivers and some more to the
west not yet discovered, belonged to the same riparian scheme. that great
discovery had yet to be made. The problem of the rivers was taken in hand by
one of the most heroic and daring of Australian explorers when Captain Charles
Sturt applied himself to it in 1828. Sturt had come to the country with his
regiment, the 39th (Dorsets) in the previous year, and at once became
fascinated by the question of what became of the large streams which Oxley had
navigated, and which Hume and Hovell had crossed. It was speculated that they
poured their waters into a great inland sea. If that were true, where was that
sea? Sturt wrote that he undertook his series of toilsome explorations from 'a
wish to contribute to the public good'; 'I should exceedingly regret,' he
said, 'if it were thought I had volunteered hazardous and important
undertakings for the love of adventure alone.' The spirit of his work was
entirely in accord with that profession.

For three years previously to 1828 Australia had been
severely afflicted by drought. Crops failed and stock died for lack of grass
and water in districts where there was abundance in normal seasons. If there
were well-watered areas in the interior, beyond the zone which had hitherto
been examined, it was urged that they should be found. Sturt's expedition was
therefore equipped by governor Darling with the view of following up the
channel of the Macquarie. It was pursued in a boat as long as there was a
sufficient depth of water, and then the explorers started off on horseback,
travelling a full month over barren, sun-baked, drought-smitten plains, till
suddenly they found themselves on the precipitous banks of a river which
gleamed forty feet below them. They had found the Darling. The water in it, to
their deep disappointment, was brackish, but there were fortunately occasional
pools of drinkable water with which they could refresh themselves and their
cattle. The parched beds of the Bogan and the Castlereagh were examined before
the party were compelled to beat a retreat back to the Macquarie.

The discovery of the Darling was of capital
importance. Though Sturt found it in a drought season, when the water was low
and salt, and for considerable stretches the bed was quite dry, yet it was
evident that those steep banks, down which the cattle could not safely be
taken, sometime held a great, deep, raging river. Here was a new problem.
Whence did this river come? Whither did it go? In 1829 the intrepid Sturt
attacked the river problem at a fresh point. Hume and Hovell had crossed the
Murumidgee on their overland journey to Port Phillip. The direction of this
river's flow and that of the Darling seemed to indicate that the two formed a
junction somewhere. The speculation was well founded, and the new journey was
to prove itself one of high historical interest. Sturt left Sydney on November
3, and struck the banks of the Murrumbidgee near Yass on November 23. There it
was a rapid, foaming stream, fresh from the snowy mountains to the east. Its
banks were followed until the water shallowed into reed-beds. Then Sturt, with
undaunted resource and energy, decided to leave his cattle and stores, put
together a whaleboat the planks and parts of which he had brought with him,
and set out to explore the further source of the river in it. He selected
seven of his party to accompany him, three of them soldiers of his regiment,
three convicts, all men upon whose devotion, and courage he could implicitly
rely. At seven o'clock in the morning on January 7, 1830, commenced the very
remarkable voyage which was to prove the junction of the Murrumbidgee and the
Darling with the Murray, and was to trace the whole course of that great
waterway to the sea.

After a dangerous and exciting journey of a week,
piloting the boat through formidable barriers of snags, suddenly and
unexpectedly the river current took a southern course. At two in the afternoon
of January 14, the boat shut out of the Murrumbidgee into a broad and noble
river with such force that the explorers were 'carried nearly to the bank
opposite its mouth,' while they 'gazed in silent wonder' upon the large
channel they had entered. Nine days later a new and beautiful river was found
pouring itself into the main stream, and Sturt felt sure that this was the
Darling, which he had discovered, a salt and shrunken ribbon of water, 300
miles to the north-east, on his previous journey. The identity was not
completely established till some years later, but Sturt's reasoning in 1830
was really sufficient to make the point clear. The boat was carried down by
the current until the Murray emptied itself into the great lake at the mouth,
and the explorers saw to the westward of them the blue waters of Encounter
Bay. Sturt gave to the great river the name of Sir George Murray, who happened
to be Secretary of State for War and the Colonies for a few months in 1828-30.
He was a man whom the Duke of Wellington took into his Cabinet because he
liked him as a soldier, but who is described by an English historian as one
who 'had given no signs of any capacity in debate and had display7ed no
qualifications for administering a civil office.' Murray had even ceased to be
a minister before the news reached England that his name had been given to the
trunk of the great river-system of Australia.

The total cost to the Government of equipping the
expedition from which so much resulted was 265 pounds 19s. 4.3/4d.

Alexander Hume, the leader of the expedition of 1824,
claimed that the Murray was simply the lower part of the river which he had
discovered and named after himself; and, really, he was quite right. True, he
had not explored it for more than a few miles, nor could he have done so
consistently with carrying out the plan upon which he was engaged; whereas
Sturt had followed it for 1,759 miles from its junction with the Murrumbidgee
to the sea. But that fact does not detract from the soundness of Hume's claim;
and though the river is likely to carry the name of Murray perpetually, there
does not seem to be any better reason for thus celebrating an obscure
politician (who, when questioned late in 1830), did not know who Sturt was or
where the river was) than that it is too well established to be altered.
Sturt's two great journeys of 1828-30 were the most important pieces of inland
exploration in Australian history. Others may have had more exciting
adventures and endured greater hardships. Sturt himself in the expedition from
Adelaide in 1844 - to be discussed thereafter - did a more desperately brave
thing. But the discovery of the Darling and the exploration of the Murray to
the mouth; the laying down upon the map of the main arteries of the enormous
spread of river-veins which take the water from 414,253 square miles of
territory - double the area of France; the opening of a new, rich,
well-watered province for British colonization - this was the consummate
achievement of Sturt's career as an explorer. Withal, he was a kind and
considerate gentleman, 'brave as a paladin, gentle as a girl,' a leader of men
who was followed by his chosen band in any risk because he was trusted and
beloved. Exposure, privations, anxiety, and severe labour on these expeditions
brought on bad health and a period of blindness; and he never received
adequate recognition and honour for what he had done.

The Surveyor-General of New South Walws, Major Thomas
Mitchell (he had been appointed to that office in 1828), did not conceal his
jealousy and annoyance that Sturt was chosen to command the expedition to
solve the river problem. He himself was keen to attain fame as an explorer,
and thought that the task should have been entrusted to him. But there was
plenty of valuable work still to be done in this field, and Mitchell had
abundant opportunities of proving his own worth. His first expeditions were to
the upper Darling country in 1831 and again in 1835, when he found the great
river not low as Sturt had seen it, but flowing full and sweet-watered through
richly grassed country. He now discovered that Allan Cunningham's Gwydir and
Dumaresq were tributaries of the Darling. The fragments of streams found by
one explorer after another, and marked in thin, disconnected streaks upon
their maps, were becoming linked up.

In the following year, 1836, Mitchell planned his
most famous expedition. He was entrusted to find out whether the Darling was
the same river as Sturt had found flowing into the Murray. He was somewhat
doubtful of Sturt's reasoning; his jealousy apparently made him hope that
Sturt was wrong. But even before he reached the point of junction he realized
that the Darling was indeed a tributary of the Murray. The problem was solved,
and if Mitchell had returned to Sydney when he realised that his allotted task
was done the expedition of 1836 would have fallen short of being very
important. But after working up the Murray for about a fortnight, he crossed
over to the south side of it, camped at Swan Hill, kept moving southerly, and
ascended Mount Hope and Pyramid Hill. There he had a Pisgah-sight which
fascinated him. All around him the explorer saw a magnificent stretch of fresh
country, quite different from that to which he had been accustomed in New
South Wales. He threw up his hands in rapture. Moses had never entered the
Promised Land, but he, Thomas Mitchell, beheld a perfect Paradise rolling in
green and golden glory before his eyes, and was to be the first to traverse
it. 'As I stood,' he wrote, 'the first intruder on the sublime solitude of
these verdant plains, as yet untouched by flocks and herds, I felt conscious
of being the harbinger of mighty changed there; for our steps would soon he
followed by the men and the animals for which it seemed to have been
prepared.' Into 'this Eden' he believed that he was the first to break.

But in that he was mistaken. When he had led his
party by easy and pleasant stages through the western district of Victoria,
had discovered the Glenelg River, and had started on his homeward route, he
suddenly obtained a glimpse of Portland Harbour, and there, to his great
surprise, he beheld a brig lying at anchor, and what he at first took for grey
rocks proved, on examination through his telescope, to be a cluster of
comfortable huts on the shore. For, in December 1834 - that is, a year and
nine months before Mitchell appeared upon the scene - the Henty brothers had
taken up their unauthoirized abode at Portland, with flocks, herds, poultry,
and a serviceable whaling ship. Fruit-trees and vines were growing, garden
flowers and vegetables were flourishing, and fields were under cultivation in
Australia Felix before the explorer who called the country by that name set
out from Sydney. The brig in the bay was the Hentys' vessel, the Elizabeth;
and while Mitchell was enjoying the hospitality of those pioneers a hunchback
whale came into the bay and afforded an opportunity to him of witnessing an
exciting chase. 'It was not the least interesting scene in these my Australian
travels,' wrote Mitchell, 'thus to witness, from a verandah, on a beautiful
afternoon at Portland Bay, the humours of the whale fishery and all those
wondrous perils of harpooners and whaleboats of which I had delighted to read
as scenes of the stormy north.'

And these were not the only precursors of settlement
in Victoria at this very time. In the year before Mitchell started - in June
1835 - John Batman had steered a boat up the river Yarra and exclaimed, 'This
will be the place for a village' when he contemplated the site of Melbourne.
The village had actually been founded, and men were living in it. unknown to
and unauthorised by the authorities in Sydney, at the very time when, to the
westward of them, Mitchell, travel-worn but still elated, was leading his
expedition back across the verdant valleys of his Eden.

DEMOCRACY AT WORK

(a) Government

...

The Australian colonies, having been endowed with
complete self-governing powers in the manner previously described, were free
to work out their own political destinies under the protection of the British
flag, but with a minimum of interference from the British Government. They
were at liberty to dispose of their lands as they chose, to raise revenue as
they chose - they could tax imports from each other and from the
mother-country, since no restrictions were placed upon their fiscal freedom -
to make whatever laws they chose relative to their own form of government, the
franchise, the relations of capital and labour, and everything else within the
domain of social and political organization. they were enfranchised
democracies, with scope for exercising democratic government under such
favourable conditions as had rarely occurred before in the history of the
world. they were relieved from trouble concerning foreign aggression, because
they were sheltered by the greatest naval power in the world. That security is
the dominating fact in the history of Australia. Her people, while they were
developing their resources and shaping their institutions, never had any
serious anxiety about the safety of their country.

There were occasional 'scares,' when wars and rumours
of wars occupied the public mind, but there never was any serious danger.
during the Crimean War, in 1854, the people of both Sydney and Melbourne were
alarmed lest Russian cruisers should raid their ports. Sir William Denison,
who was Governor of New South Wales at the time, had been an officer of the
Royal Engineers, and took a lively interest in the fortification of Port
Jackson. Fort Denison, which in later years came to be variously regarded as a
picturesque survival or as an impediment to navigation, according to the
disposition of the beholder, was constructed. Guns were also placed so as to
command the entrance to the port and its channels. But the excitement was soon
allayed, and there was no real cause for it, though it can be understood in
view of the paucity of information as to what was happening in Europe; for
there was no submarine cable at that time.

A curious document exists which, if genuine, shows
that the Emperor Napoleon III at one time gave thought to the possibility of
making an attack on Australia. While Lord John Russell was Foreign Secretary
in Great Britain this paper came into his possession. Having read it, he put
it in an envelope, sealed it up, and enclosed it with the words: 'Private.
Very important. Questions drawn up by Empr. Napoleon with view of seizing our
Australian colonies and reviving privateering. 1853. The paper itself purports
to reveal a series of questions 'upon the English colonies in Australia.' The
questions related to the distribution of the population, whether the rule of
the mother country was popular, how many soldiers were in the country, what
places were fortified, what artillery there was, whether 10,000 men would
suffice to hold Victoria against any force which the English might bring to
retain the colony, which would be the best points for a landing, what would be
the principal obstacles to the success of such an expedition, whether Algerian
troops would be well adapted for such an enterprise, and whether 'Geelong,
Melbourne and Mount Alexander could be well fortified in a short space of
time.' The spelling of Port Phillip as 'Port Philippe' suggests that the
person who supplied Lord John Russell with the information was a Frenchman;
but the document is not in French, though it professed to be copied from an
original written by Napoleon III. The copyist said, 'want of time, or
rather the danger of discovery, did not allow of a complete copy being taken.'

Russell's informant was therefore, clearly, a spy,
and was probably paid for the information he supplied. Whether in this
instance he was supplying correct information id doubtful. Two of the
questions do not indicate an intelligent knowledge of Australian geography.
(1) The sensational gold discoveries at Mount Alexander in 1851-2 gave
prominence to that place in the newspapers, but it is not easy to believe that
Napoleon III considered that inland hill near Castlemaine, a suitable position
for fortification. (2) Another question referred to 'the colonies of Victoria
and Sydney.' Although Lord John Russell thought the document 'important' in
1853, we should not now consider it as more than interesting. There is
certainly nothing to corroborate the assertion of the spy that Napoleon III
thought of attacking Australia. During the last period of the American Civil
War, in January, 1865, the Confederate steamer Shenandoah entered Port
Phillip, and her commander, Lieutenant Waddell, asked permission of the
Governor of Victoria, Sir Charles Darling, to effect certain repairs to her
machinery, and to take on board coal and supplies. The ship had put to se from
a port in Great Britain under the name of The Sea King, but her name
had been changed to Shenandoah during her cruise, she had mounted guns
as a ship of war, and had been employed in sinking vessels belonging to the
Federal (or Northern) States of America. All British possessions were warned,
when the civil war broke out in 1861, that it was necessary to observe strict
neutrality, and the Foreign Enlistment Act forbade British subjects to take
any part in the contest. The Shenandoah was entitled, under the
international rules of war, to the consideration for which Lieutenant Waddell
had ask3ed, and no offence was committed against the Government of the United
States (the 'Federal' Government) in permitting her to make repairs and take
in supplies.

But while the ship was in dock, the American Consul
in Melbourne warned the Governor that the crew of the Shenandoah was being
strengthened by the enlistment of British subjects, and that at least one man
had already gone on board. The Governor sent a police officer with a warrant
to arrest the man. but Lieutenant Waddell refused to allow his ship to be
searched for the purpose of executing the warrant. He said that the dock of a
man-of-war was 'inviolable,' and that sooner than allow the police officer to
make a search be 'would fight his ship.' At the same time he gave to the
Governor 'his word of honour as an officer and a gentleman' that he had no
British subject on board, nor had he engaged anyone, nor would he do so while
he was in the port. There is no doubt that Lieutenant Waddell was not truthful
in these undertakings and statements.

The Victorian Government placed a police guard to
watch the ship and prevent British subjects from going on board. But despite
these precautions the Shenandoah did augment her crew while she was within the
port of Melbourne; and after leaving the port she committed further
depredations against shipping belonging to subjects of the United States,
which were computed by the government of that country to amount to 6,300,000
dollars. At the conclusion of the war, the United States Government made
claims against the British Government for compensation on account of damage
done by Confederate ships which had been allowed to sail from British orts.
The greatest amount of damage was committed by the Alabama, and the whole case
is consequently known by that ship's name. The claims were referred to a court
of arbitration which sat at Geneva in 1872. The total amount awarded to the
United States was 15,500,000 dollars (3,250,000 pounds). The arbitrators were
not unanimous as to whether any sum ought to be awarded on account of the
Shenandoah. Two were of opinion that no fault was committed at Melbourne; but
three held that the Victorian Government had been negligent. By a majority of
one, therefore, the court decided that Great Britain was liable for 'all the
acts committed by that vessel after her departure from Melbourne on February
18, 1865.' As the court decided to award what it termed a 'sum in gross,'
without specifying how much was allowed in particular instances, the official
record does not state what sum was awarded on account of the Shenandoah; but
though the amount cannot be precisely ascertained, there is evidence to show
that it was about one-fourth of the total sum. Sir Alexander Cockburn,
afterwards Lord Chief Justice of England, who was a member of the court of
arbitration, held that the award in respect to the Shenandoah was unjust; and
the Secretary of State wrote to Governor Sir Charles Darling, informing him
that in the opinion of the British Government the actions of the Victorian
Government in the matter had been correct.

The constitutions conferred upon the colonies were
not unalterable instruments. They contained within themselves power to
'repeal, alter, or vary' any provision. Thus, if New South Wales had desired
to substitute on elective for a nominated Legislative Council, she could have
done it by the simple passing of an Act for the purpose, provided that the Act
was passed by an absolute majority of the members of each House. That the
colonies would wish to alter their constitutions in some respects was soon
evident. As has already been pointed out, a very large number of those who
immigrated to the country in the gold-digging era were English Chartists or
men strongly imbued with Chartist or extr3eme radical political ideas. Men
like Henry Parkes, David Syme, Graham Berry, James Service, and many others
who influenced thought or directed policy in Australia, had either been
actively connected with English Chartists or were imbued with Chartist
principles. They quickly saw opportunities for realising their opinions in
Australia years before there was a possibility of securing substantial reforms
along such lines in Great Britain.

The attainment of voting by ballot presents a good
illustration of this statement. The principle was one of the six 'points' of
the English Chartists, and at the time when responsible government was
conferred upon the Australian colonies it had not been adopted anywhere within
the British Empire. It was brought forward in the Legislative Council in
December 1855. On a resolution in favour of voting by ballot in the Electoral
Bill then under consideration being carried against the wish of the
Government, the first Victorian Premier, Haines, resigned office. But the
motion, which was submitted by William Nicholson, was adhered to by the House.
Clauses embodying the ballot principle were prepared by Henry Samuel Chapman,
then a member of the Victorian Legislative Council, and afterwards a judge in
New Zealand. Nicholson, though his motion secured the adoption of the ballot
principle, was unable to work out a practical method of giving effect to it.
Chapman's legal skill came to his assistance, and he was therefore the real
author of the Victorian ballot system, which was passed into law in March
1856. In April 1856, South Australia also adopted a ballot system. The other
Australian colonies soon followed these examples.

Yet there were many at the time who had grave
misgivings about abandoning the old, familiar method of open voting at the hustings, and, curiously enough, amongst them was Hugh Childers, then the
Victorian Commissioner of Customs, but afterwards a member of several Liberal
Governments in Great Britain. In England, where bills to institute voting by
ballot were rejected twenty-eight times by the House of Lords, and where the
supporters of the principle did not succeed till 1872, the system proposed was
generally called during the discussions 'the Victorian ballot'; and a learned critic of American institutions records that in that country 'secret, or as
they are called "Australian," official ballot laws are now in force in all the
States except Georgia and South Carolina' (Bryce, American
Commonwealth), vol. ii, 148).

The Australian reformers brought with them from Great
Britain a stock of political ideas which those who advocated them had failed
to embody in legislative shape there, but which it was much easier to enact in
Australia. Phrases of English origin became the common stock of Australian
politics. The phrase 'one man one vote,' which expressed the aspiration to
abolish dual or multiple voting powers for the propertied classes, was coined
by Major Cartwright, the English radical, in the great days of Pitt and Fox.
It is the law in all the Australian States, and the Commonwealth constitution
enacts that 'in the choosing of members each elector shall vote only once.'
The principle of payment of members of Parliament, adop0ted in all the
Australian colonies, was a Chartist demand. The abolition of the property
qualification for members of the popular house of legislature, which all the
Australian colonies likewise adopted, was taken from the Chartist programme.
So was manhood suffrage. The 'People's Charter' of the early Victorian
radicals did not, it is true, embody women's suffrage; and the main arguments
for that principle were borrowed by the Australian supporters from John Stuart
Mill and his school. South Australia was the first of the six colonies to
confer the franchise on women (1894). Western Australia (1899) was the next.
New South Wales (1902) was the third. Tasmania enfranchised women in 1903,
Queensland in 1905, Victoria in 1908, and the other colonies placed adults of
both sexes on an electoral equality by later constitutional amendments.

The two colonies (New South Wales and Queensland),
whose Legislative Councils were, in the commencement of responsible
government, erected as nominee chambers, adhered to that system until 1922. In
that year the Legislative Council of Queensland was abolished. In the four
other instances the Councils were elected by constituents possessing property
qualifications. There was one sharp crisis with the New South Wales
Legislative Council in the early years of its history. The constitution of
1855 - Wentworth's Act - provided that the first Council of twenty-one members
should be appointed by the governor for five years, but that at the expiration
of that term 'all future members shall hold their seats for the term of their
natural lives.' It happened that during those first five years the Government
headed by Charles Cooper had introduced a Land Bill designed to make it easier
for poor men to acquire farms. The bill, whose author was John Robertson,
embodied the contentions principle of 'free selection before survey,' which
meant that a selector desiring to obtain a piece of land could enter upon any
crown land - even if it were alr3eady leased to a squatter - pick out a block,
and settle upon it. But the squatters who occupied large areas of land leased
from the Crown objected to this proposal, because it would enable selectors
to enter upon their sheep-runs, pick out the best pieces, such as well-watered
and fertile parts, and leave them with the inf3erior land. It would
also, they urged, enable men who had no real intention to settle to enter upon
a leased run and select, in the hope that the squatter would pay them
something to get rid of them. As the Legislative Council consisted largely of
landowners and others who were friendly with the squatter class, it was quite
expected that that House would amend the Cowper Government's Bill.

The bill passed the Legislative Assembly in 1861. the
five years' term of the first Legislative Council was drawing to a close; and,
had Cowper delayed the measure for a few weeks, he would have been able to
nominate such a Council as would certainly pass it. But he was impatient to
get his Land Bill upon the statute-book, and when the council amended it so as
to prevent a selector from picking out land upon a leased run, he adopted the
startling course of advising he Governor (Sir John Young) to appoint
twenty-one fresh members. but those nominees never took their seats in the
first Legislative Council of New South Wales; for when they presented
themselves to be sworn in, on the last day of sitting of the last week of the
five years period, the President, Sir William Burton, at once resigned office
and walked out, followed by the majority of the members. Governor Young was
afterwards censured by the Secretary of State for the Colonies for accepting
advice to create 'upon a sudden and for a single night' sufficient Legislative
Councillors to convert a government minority into a majority. The new council
- entirely nominated, of course, by the Cowper Government - carried its land
legislation without demur.

After this incident the Cowper Government proposed
to make the Council an elective body. Wentworth, who had watched the
proceedings just narrated with indignation, now favoured the elective
principle, since, he declared in wrathful scorn, the nomination system had
enabled a Government 'to sweep the streets of Sydney in order to attempt to
swamp the House by the introduction of twenty-one members.' But a committee to
which the bill for establishing an elective council was referred reported
strongly against establishing an upper house based on manhood suffrage; and,
as Cowper had intended to make a wide franchise the complement of his scheme,
and now saw no hope of doing so, he did not persist with it. In 1872 Henry
Parkes made an attempt to introduce an elective element into the Council, but
failed to convince Parliament that a change was desirable.

Not long after the commencement of responsible
government the elective Legislative Council of Victoria became engaged in a
bitter struggle with the Legislative Assembly, and public opinion in New south
Wales, watching the exciting events which were occurring over the border, saw
that the nominee system did after all afford a ready means of bringing the
Council into harmony with the policy of the Ministry of the day, by the
nomination of new members; whereas, under the system of election on a property
qualification, there was a much graver risk of the two Houses getting into
conflict and deadlock. The Victorian quarrel, the first of a succession of
such disputes between two legislative bodies, was of great interest in the
history of parliamentary government in the British Empire; and the importance
of it is increased by the fact that it was connected with the initiation of
what ultimately became the economic policy of Australia as a whole. In 1864
the Ministry of James McCullock gave its support to the principle of imposing
customs duties upon imports, with a view of encouraging the manufacture of
those goods in Victoria; that is, to the principle of protection. The
conversion of McCulloch and his colleagues to this policy had been somewhat
sudden; for in a public speech at the previous general election he had plainly
declared, 'I am opposed to protection; what the colony wants is to buy in the
cheapest market and to sell in the dearest.' But a strong body of public
opinion had by this time been formed in favour of the protective system,
largely under the influence of a man who played a silent but powerful part in
Victorian politics for about half a century.

This man was David Syme, a tall, granitic Scotsman,
reared on oatmeal and philosophy; a student, but also a keen man of affairs; a
thinker deeply interested in the serious literature and problems of the modern
world, but one who, whether engaged in cattle-breeding, or scientific
speculation, or politics, brought to bear upon the a question in hand the full
force of a strong will and a hard, critical, somewhat sceptical intellect. He
came to Australia in 1853 and tried his luck on the gold diggings. There he
made some money, though he had not much taste for the work. but in 1860 he
found the real vocation of his life, as well as his path to fortune, and -
what he valued still more - power. His brother, Ebenezer Syme, had also come
to Australia, and was at this time writing articles for a newspaper called the
Age, which had been started in October 1854. This journal had
vehemently championed the cause of the Ballarat miners, but its original
proprietors had no liking for the opinions expounded by the little group of
men who wrote its leading articles. Ebenezer Syme and his colleagues were,
indeed, slashing about in fine style; so that the proprietors, who had simply
started the paper to make money and were disappointed in that regard, sold it
in December to a co-operative group of printers, who had very little capital,
but plenty of energy. Then David Syme came along with the money he had made
from mining. His brother advised him to buy the Age, which was on the
brink of extinction. David Syme had no belief in the speculation. He doubted
whether there was scope for another newspaper in Melbourne. But he did believe
in his brother, who had been assistant editor of the Westminster Review in
London, and was a man of keen insight. So in 1856 when the Age, with the plant
and type, was sold at auction, it was bought for 2,000 pounds by James McEwan,
a Melbourne ironmonger, in behalf of the Syme brothers. The newspaper did not
make sufficient profit to maintain both of them, and David Syme engaged in
contracting till his accomplished brother died in 1860, when, rather
unwillingly, he took over the management himself.

On many subjects Syme had thought himself into
opinions which were at variance with those commonly entertained. Nearly
everybody in Australia who took a keen interest in politics at that time was a
free-trader. Cobden and Bright and the Anti-Corn-Law League had triumphed in
Great Britain in 1845, when they won Sir Robert Peel to their side; and
English colonists, especially those who favoured liberal principles, accepted
free trade as a fixed part of the British system. Syme himself said in a
letter that, when he started to advocate protection for native industries in
the Age, 'there was not, so far as I knew, a man in the whole country but was
a free-trader.' But he came to the conclusion that it would be very difficult,
if not impossible, to establish successful manufacturing industries in
Victoria as long as manufactures were exposed to the unrestricted competition
of British and foreign firms, commanding large capital and great output. 'A
bar is put upon the attempt at the very outset,' he said in the first leading
article he wrote on the subject; and unless local efforts were protected by
the imposition of duties on imported manufactures, the people of this new
country would 'be as utter strangers to all scientific skill and practical
dexterity in the arts and manufactures of highly civilised nations as are the
Bedouins of Barbary or the Tartars of Central Asia.'

Whether this was a true theory of trade or otherwise
is not a subject with which we are now concerned. We have to do with
historical causes and consequences; and the effect of Syme's advocacy of
protection, which he maintained with unflagging vigour, was very remarkable.
During a period of commercial depression he persisted in his policy, and very
soon there was a strong party in Melbourne which carried the agitation to the
platform and forced it forward as a political issue. Politicians who had
scouted protection began to realize that Syme's journal was carrying weight
with the elections. A parliamentary champion was found in Graham Berry, a
London Chartist with a fervid oratorical temperament. After a general election
in 1865 there was a majority of members of the Legislative Assembly in favour
of imposing a protective tariff, and McCulloch, who, like many others, had
swung round, pledged his Government to introduce one.

When McCulloch carried out his promise by submitting
a tariff to Parliament in 1865, his Government was already engaged in a
quarrel with the Legislative Council, which he had proposed to reform by
reducing the property qualification and shortening the period for which the
members were elected from ten years to five. The Council had promptly rejected
this measure, and McCulloch judged from the tone of the debate and his
knowledge of the political atmosphere that his tariff would be treated in a
similar manner. He therefore determined to throw down a challenge to the
combative Council by sending the tariff to it not in a separate bill, which
would have been the ordinary procedure, but 'tacked' to the Appropriation Bill
for voting money for the ordinary annual services of the country. The
expedient of 'tacking' a measure known to be repugnant to an upper house, to
an annual appropriation bill, was not a new one. It had been done in England
in the reign of William III, but had always been regarded by the House of
Lords as an unconstitutional procedure. But McCulloch clearly meant not merely
to force his protective tariff through Parliament, but also to break the
Legislative Council, which he had failed to reform. By 'tacking' the tariff to
the Appropriation bill he threw upon the Council the responsibility of
accepting or rejecting the whole measure, since under the Victorian
constitution a bill appropriating revenue was one which the council was not
empowered to amend. It could accept or reject, but could not alter a line.

Then commenced a protracted conflict of exceptional
acuteness. The Council 'laid aside' the bill. Consequently the Government did
not obtain authority to spend the money which was required to carry on public
works, pay the civil service, meet bills, and so forth. Meanwhile the
Government continued to collect revenues from importers, who were compelled to
pay duty on their goods. This they did in accordance with the British
practice, which made duties of customs collectable from the time of the
proposal of new rates to the House of Commons, and before they had been
sanctioned by Parliament. some of the merchants sued the Government to recover
money which they held to have been illegally collected, and the Supreme Court
decided in their favour. But the government defied the Court and went on
collecting the revenue, which it was legally neither empowered to take nor
authorized to spend. McCulloch's ingenuity hit upon the device of borrowing
40,000 pounds from the London Bank of Australia, of which he was a director,
and then inducing the Bank to sue the Government for the recovery of the money
borrowed. The Government did not defend the suit, the Bank got judgement in
its favour, and the Governor authorized the handing over of the 40,000 pounds.
It was clever, and it enabled the Government to tide over present
difficulties under shelter of law. By several repetitions of the processes of
borrowing and of paying back under an order of the Court, the claims of the
public creditor were me6t. But the difficulty between th3e two branches of the
Legislature remained unsettled.

In November the controversy entered upon a new phase,
when the government consented to send a separate tariff bill to the Council,
thus removing he 'talk' to the Appropriation bill which had given such
offences. but the bill now contained a retrospective clause, designed to
render of no avail judgements which had been obtained from the Supreme Court
by the merchants who had sued the Government. The Council objected to this and
several other provisions of the bill, and refused to pass it. The position of
deadlock between the two Houses was therefore unrelieved. As there was no
constitutional means of settling such differences, the Government determined
to appeal to the country. The Governor, Sir Charles Darling, on the advice of
his ministers, granted a dissolution of the Legislative Assembly. The
Legislative Council, though an elective body, was not, under the constitution,
affected by a dissolution. Its members held their seats during the ten years
for which they were elected, no matter what happened to the other branch of
the Legislature.

The general election evoked to the shrillest pitch
the storm of controversy which had raged in the country during the discussion
of these events. The opulent resources of the English language were fully
exploited for terms of abuse which partisans hurled at each other. The issue
was mainly that protection, and the action of the Council in rejecting the
tariff. The Council itself, though thoroughly unpopular, certainly had
constitutional justification for refusing to pass a money bill with extraneous
provisions 'tacked' to it. But the set of public opinion against what was
generally regarded as a compact body of landowners fighting for their own
interests was so determined that the constituencies were little inclined to
weigh technical justifications. The McCulloch Government was swept back to
power on a wave of popular enthusiasm, and it faced the new Parliament in 1866
with a solid and resolute protectionist majority behind it. Even now, however,
the Council would not yield. Once more it rejected the Tariff Bill, which, it
must be confessed, received little consideration on its merits as a measure of
protection, because it was complicated with provisions which McCulloch's
pugnacious Attorney-General, Higinbotham, insisted on putting into it, and
which, the Council held, ought not to form part of a bill imposing customs
duties. The simple issue of tariff or no tariff was not laid before the
Council. It was clogged with other principles.

McCulloch now resigned office, but the Assembly
passed a resolution informing the Governor that it would no6t support any
Government which did not persist with the bills alr3eady submitted to the
Council. It was therefore plainly useless for the Governor to choose a
Ministry from the opposition. Nor form of government which the wit of man can
devise will work well unless those who live under it are prepared to oil its
wheels with good-will. The British constitution, upon which the Victorian
instrument was modelled, would break down unless in times of crisis a spirit
of concession prevailed. But the two Victorian houses in 1865-6 had come to a
condition of deadlock through a conflict of obstinate wills, and as the latter
year wore on relations were strained almost to breaking point. There was much
inflammatory rhetoric; revolution rumbled behind the menacing clouds of
political conflict; something had to give way. McCulloch resumed office, and
reintroduced the Tariff Bill. It was passed for the fourth time and sent to
the council. but cool advice had been tendered to the members of that body,
and they now proposed a conference between selected members of the two House.
As the result of talks between fourteen representatives, the Tariff was at
length accepted by the Council with the elimination of the retrospective
clause and of certain expressions in the preamble declaratory of the rights of
the Assembly, to which strong opposition had been made.

The protective policy, which was due mainly to Syme's
advocacy, was thus initiated in Victoria amidst furious storms. Incidentally
the struggle made the fortune of the Age, and gave to Syme the pre-eminence in
Victorian politics which he continued to exercise as long as that generation
survived. He was a more vigorous thinker and a stronger personality than were
most of the politicians, and he dictated policies to them from his newspaper
office, confident that the electorate would follow his head. His success was
the result of hard fighting and a consummate understanding of how to
manipulate political forces. but though the tariff issue was now settled, days
of peace were by no means at hand. Rancours bubbled in the parliamentary
cauldron, and fresh flames burst forth shortly.

The position of Governor Darling throughout the
recent disputes had been one of exceptional difficulty. the disruption of the
normal mode of financing the affairs of government, the resort to the
expediency of borrowing money from a bank and getting the bank to sue the
Government for the amount borrowed because Parliament had not passed the
necessary Appropriation bill, the uncompromising cleavage between the two
Houses, the whole welter of bitter controversy, had thrown upon Darling
responsibilities in discharging which he was bound to displease the one party
or the other. He had acted upon the advice of his ministers, and that advice
had been given in the heat of party conflict and for the purpose of winning
party victory. but he had shown marked sympathy with his ministers, and had in
an official despatch attacked certain petitioners against the action of the
McCulloch ministry as guilty of 'conduct highly discreditable,' as
'ministering to their own personal and pecuniary profit' in what they had
done, and as unworthy of ever holding responsible office. A review of
Darling's actions during the crisis included the Secretary of State to write a
despatch censuring he recalling him.

But, however much the Legislative Council and the
supporters might hate the governor, he was a popular hero. The stalwarts of
the Assembly declared that he had been victimized by the Colonial Office
because he had not thwarted the popular cause. The rich squatters, they said,
had compassed his ruin because he would not be their creature. Torchlight
processions and public demonstrations were held in his honour, and he might
have papered government House with the illuminated addresses which poured in.
the Assembly voted an address wherein it stated that Darling had saved
Victoria from anarchy by adhering to the principles of popular government. As
he could no longer expect employment in the Colonial Office the Assembly voted
20,000 pounds to Lady Darling. Again the country boiled with excitement. The
20,000 pounds item was included in the supplementary estimates of expenditure,
and the Legislative Council promptly rejected the bill, contending that such a
grant ought to have been the subject of a separate measure. Though the new
Governor, Manners-Sutton, sent a message to the Council informing it that
Darling had resigned from the colonial service in the belief that the grant
would be made, and that failure to make it would be in the nature of
repudiation, the Council would not yield. McCulloch adopted in regard to the
Darling grant the method that he had pursued on the tariff. He resigned, but
his solid majority would not grant supplies to the Ministry which
Manners-Sutton induced to succeed him. then he consented to resume office on
condition that he secured a dissolution which would enable him to take the
verdict of the country. Once more he and his party were triumphantly returned.
But this time the Imperial Government, thinking that Victoria had had enough
of bitter strife, ended it by granting to Darling a pension of 1,000 pounds a
year for life, whereupon he intimated that Lady Darling would not accept the
20,000 pounds which the Assembly was determined to vote.

There was another deadlock between the Victorian
Houses in 1877 on the question of the payment of members of Parliament. The
principle had been approved by the country, and the Legislative Council had
twice (1870 and 1874) passed Acts embodying it. But these had been temporary
measures, lapsing after a prescribed time. The Government headed by Graham
Barry now (1877) resolved to make payment of members the permanent rule. A
bill for the purpose was passed by the Assembly, but was rejected by the
Council. Berry thereupon resolved to fight the Council; and he threw down a
challenge to it by including the required sum in the annual Appropriation
bill. It was another instance of 'tacking,' and the rejection of the measure
was a foregone conclusion. Berry was determined to exert coercive pressure
upon the Council which had so often and so defiantly thwarted the Assembly.

As the Council would not pass the Appropriation Bill
containing the offending item, and the Assembly would not have the bill
without the item, Berry resolved to reduce expenditure and carry on government
by an expedient. On January 8, 1878 (known in Victorian history as Black
Wednesday), by proclamation he dismissed a considerable number of public
servants from their offices. They were principally heads of departments and
well-paid officials, and their sudden ejection from office, by depriving them
of the means of paying rents, interest on mortgages, tradesmen's bills, and
other debts, brought about an immediate collapse in the value of property. It
was plainly intimated that other dismissals might follow. The plea was the
necessity of reducing expenditure, but the political object undoubtedly was to
bring pressure to bear on the Council and make its members sorry for their
defiance. Next, Berry induced the Assembly to declare by resolution that
grants of money voted by it were to 'become legally available for
expenditure,' without the concurrence of the Council. thirdly, he persuaded
the Governor (Sir George Bowen), that he could legally sign what were called
'Treasury warrants,' authorizing expenditure which had been voted by the one
house of legislature but not ratified by the other.

These were not strictly constitutional acts, but they
were effective. In March 1878 intermediaries declared that the Council would
now view the payment of members proposal in a move conciliatory spirit. The
Appropriation Bill was passed without the 'tack,' and the Council agreed to a
Payment of Members Bill to operate till the end of the existing Parliament,
with the understanding that a permanent measure for the purpose would
afterwards be accepted. In 1880 a bill making payment of members part of the
regular governing system of Victoria was passed without dispute, the Council,
however, stipulating that it should not apply to its own members.

There have been disputes between the two houses of
legislature in other colonies, but none approaching in interest and
constitutional importance, or in intense feeling, the celebrated Victorian
struggles of 1865-6 and 1877-8. The memory of them caused the framers of the
Commonwealth constitution to make especially careful provision for remedying
deadlocks which might arise between the two houses of the federal legislature.
The Victorian Council itself, moreover, recognized a little later (1851) that
its own constitution was dangerously remote from popular influences, and
reformed itself by reducing he property qualification of its members and
electors and the size of its electoral provinces. After 1881 it became rather
less of a squatting oligarchy, and somewhat more representative of human
beings than of sheep than it had been in the years of its historical fights
with McCulloch and Graham Berry.

DEMOCRACY AT WORK

(b) Land, Labour, and the Popular Welfare

For the upbuilding of Australia, the first need was
population to occupy its empty spaces and set its industries throbbing. The
Wakefield system had provided for the application of the proceeds of land
sales to the stimulation of a steady flow of immigrants from Great Britain,
and a New South Wales committee on immigration which sat under the
chairmanship of Chief Justice Forbes in 1835 strongly recommended that the
land revenue should be 'held sacred' for this purpose. In 1842 governor Gipps
announced it as his intention to apply 'the whole of the money derived in any
shape from land to the purposes of immigration.' but this policy was never
consistently followed in any part of Australia.

In the days when the great squatting properties were
being formed the landowners were by no means favourable to the encouragement
of a constant stream of immigrant settlers. As long as they could obtain
sufficient labour to shear their sheep and tend their herds they were content.
'they did not wish to see the good lands cut up among farmers, but considered
that the country would fare better - or at all events that they themselves
would derive longer profits - from the allocation of these areas among a
wealthy class of sheep and cattle magnates. They were satisfied with convict
labour; some advocated the introduction of coolie labour from China. But they
were suspicious of the free immigration of a British peasantry and farming
class, who would probably - as indeed they did - clamour for the breaking up
of the large estates. Various systems of 'bounty,' 'assisted,' and 'nominated'
immigration were, however, tried between the period of the thirties and that
of the establishment of the Commonwealth, which was empowered under the
federal constitution to assume control of immigration. In 1837 and later years
George Fife Angas introduced a large immigration of German families to South
Australia, where they proved themselves to be very valuable settlers. Dr. Lang
also went out as an immigration missionary in behalf of his pet colonies of
Victoria and "Queensland, and wrote books extolling their attractions.

As early as 1841 a committee of the Legislative
Council of New South Wales considered the advisableness of introducing coolie
labour from Asia. The Committee reported strongly against the proposal,
chiefly on two grounds. First, the introduction of an alien and servile
element was was deemed to be undesirable because it would alter the racial
character of the population. It would prevent the maintenance in Australia of
'a social and political state corresponding with that of the country from
which it owes its origin.' Secondly, collie labour would compete with
immigrants from Great Britain, and so seriously lower wages that ultimately
coolie labour only would be imported. this view was supported by the ablest of
Australian governors, and by statesmen in Great Britain who gave attention to
Australian affairs. Sir Richard Bourke wrote that the introduction of coolie labour would mean 'a sacrifice of permanent advantage to temporary
expediency'; and Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the Colonies,
emphatically declared that the introduction of Asiatic labour would bring
agricultural work to Australia into disrepute, and consequently check the
immigration of labourers from Great Britain. The clear expression of these
views in the late thirties and early forties of the nineteenth century was an
interesting prelude to the policy which Australia was hereafter to lay down as
essential to her existence as a nation of European origin.

A disposition to exercise a filtering care in the
character of immigration made itself apparent as soon as representative
institutions got to work. the South Australian constitution had barred that
province against the reception of convicts from the beginning; and the first
Legislative council of Victoria passed very stringent Acts against the
incursion of expirees and ticket-of-leave men from Tasmania. The influx of
Chinese to the gold-fields drew attention to the danger that menaced Australia
from the fact that her shores lay within a few days' steaming of the
overcrowded areas of Asia. In 1858 there were 33,000 Chinese on the Victorian
gold-fields, whilst five years before there had been fewer than 2,000. The
antipathy to them existed mainly among the miners and artisans, but there were
others also who on broad grounds considered that it was undesirable to permit
an admixture of races in this sparsely populated land.

The first Act to limit Chinese immigration was passed
in Victoria in 1855. It 8imposed a poll-tax of 10 pounds on each Chinese
immigrant, and forbade ships to carry more than one Chinese passenger for
every ten tons of the vessel's tonnage. Four years later the law was stiffened
by requiring Chinese to pay a residence tax of 4 pounds per annum. this
legislation was not disallowed by the Crown, though the Secretary of State
wrote that it was considered highly objectionable in principle. Queensland and
New South Wales also became uneasy about Chinese immigration. both colonies
passed stringent measure. Parkes was confronted with an awkward anti-Chinese
feeling in 1888. The British Government at this time was disposed to frown
upon the exclusion policy, which they did not regard as being in harmony with
British treaties with China. Lord Salisbury, then Foreign Secretary, had
received a protest from the Chinese Ambassador. But it was impossible to
disregard the repugnance of the people for whose welfare the various
Australian Governments were responsible. There were riots in Brisbane, and mob
violence on the gold-fields created a dangerous situation. Parkes felt it to
be necessary to speak plainly. the Australians, he publicly declared, were not
'school-children who can be called to account by the Prime Minister of
England'; and 'neither for Her Majesty's ships of war, nor for Her Majesty's
representatives, nor for the Secretary of State, do we intend to turn aside
from our purpose, which is to terminate the landing of the Chinese on these
shores for ever.'

The legal right of a British colony to exclude aliens
whom it does not desire to admit within its borders was determined in the
Victorian case of Toy versus Musgrove. In this case a Chinese
commonly known as Ah Toy - his full name was Chung Teong Toy - came to
Victoria in 1888 in the ship Afghan. He was one of 269 Chinese in the
vessel. That number was 254 in excess of the number of Chinese who could be
admitted from a vessel of the Afghan's tonnage, under the Victorian
law. The collector of Customs at Melbourne, Musgrove, acting under
instructions from the Minister of his department, refused to allow these
persons to land. Ah Toy thereupon brought an action in the Supreme Court of
Victoria, to test the legality of his exclusion. The Supreme Court, by a
majority of four judges against two (Chief Justice Higinbotham and Mr. Justice
Kerford being the minority) decided in favour of Ah Toy. But the Government of
Victoria appealed to the Privy Council, the highest court of appeal in the
British empire in cases from the colonies. The Privy Council, in 1891, decided
that 'an alien has not a legal right enforceable by action, to enter a British
colony.' that judgment set at rest all doubt as to the right of the Australian
colonies to pass laws to exclude Chinese, or any other aliens, if they thought
it prudent to do so. The common feeling on this burning question induced
Parkes to call a conference of representatives of the various Governments to
consider a common line of policy, and that inter-colonial conference, held in
June 1888, brought all the colonies to a common line of action upon a matter
of public policy.

The land legislation of Australia might very well be
described by the phrase which Oliver Cromwell used concerning the laws of
England - 'an ungodly jumble.' IN all the colonies, in the beginning, it was
easy to get land. The aim of government was to induce people to settle. An
unmeasured space waited occupation. Naturally, the best land soon became the
possession of comparatively few people, who acquired it cheaply and held it in
large estates. But, as population increased, these large holdings were found
to be inconvenient. Broadly speaking, the aim of Governments, since the era of
responsible government, was that of settling a yeomanry. John Robertson's
'free selection before survey' policy in New South Wales, Charles Gavan
Duffy's Land Act in Victoria in 1862, the Homesteads Act of Queensland, and
many other Land Acts, had this aim in view. In all the States there were
fierce conflicts between the squatters, who got there first, and the
selectors, who complained that the good land had mostly gone before they were
born; that the lands which were fit for cultivation were being used for
feeding sheep, whilst the lands which were quite good enough for sheep but
doubtfully good enough to cultivate were all that were available for the
higher purpose. To the student of Australian history it will appear that such
a conflict of interests was bound to arise. It could only have been avoided if
the Government, from the commencement, had withheld land from those who wanted
to use it for the purposes of which it was at the time most profitably
adapted; or if some rigorous prescription of areas had been applied.

In later years various expedients for decreasing the
great estates have been attempted; compulsory repurchase and the imposition of
taxation on unimproved land value being the favourite methods. Many
experiments failed. Duffy's scheme for settling farmers on crown lands on easy
terms resulted in much 'dummying' by squatters and others who put up their own
nominees to acquire land for them; and Robertson's free select6ion policy
resulted in 'peacocking' by squatters who induced sham selectors - really
agents of their own - to apply for and obtain the best part of leased runs at
creating opportunities for small farmers, in the long run made large estates
bigger. Moreover, the diversion of much of the energy of younger generations
to manufacturing industries, which sprang up behind the barrier of customs
duties, weakened the pressure upon the country areas. The policy of water
conservation and irrigation, in some localities, has occasioned a degree of
intense culture upon small areas that would have seemed impossible to former
generations.

South Australia had much less difficulty with her
squatters and her land than had the other colonies. The trouble in New South
Wales and Victoria was that squatters had been allowed to occupy leased runs
and to spend money in making improvements upon them, without any really clear
reservation of the right of the Crown to dispose of the lands to farmers in
smaller areas; and the squatters, therefore, resented the intrusion of late
comers who wished to pick out the best pieces for settlement. But South
Australia laid down in wide terms a clear and simple rule which reserved to
the Government the right at any time to resume leased lands 'for any purpose
of public defence, safety, improvement, convenience, or utility.' The handling
of land questions in south Australia was marked by forethought and practical
wisdom; and in one conspicuous particular she devised legislation which has
been copied with beneficial results and only throughout Australia but also in
many colonies of foreign nations.

that reform was the Land Transfer Act, commonly known
as the Torrens Act. Robert Torrens was the collector of customs at Port
Adelaide. He was not a lawyer, and he knew little about the intricacies of the
legal methods of land transfer which had been copied in Australia from Great
Britain. If a man bought a piece of land, he became possessed of a sheet of
parchment whereon was engrossed at great length the tale of the previous
ownerships of the property. These parchment title-deeds were costly, and the
phraseology of them, which only a legal specialist could profess to
understand, had been the subject of innumerable judicial decisions. Torrens
knew, from his experience as a customs officer, that shipping was bought and
sold without all this engrossing of prolix jargon. there was an official
register in which the change of ownership of a vessel was entered, and a
simple certificate from the registrar was a sufficient token that the person
named to it was the legal owner. Torrens asked himself why such a cheap and
easy method should not be adapted to the transfer of land.

When South Australia acquired responsible government
Torrens entered Parliament as member for Adelaide, and commenced to advocate
his improved system. but he was opposed and ridiculed. Lawyers declared that
land had been transferred by means of title-deeds from time immemorial, and
that no other method would give an owner security of tenure. The Chief Justice
said that mere registration would not suffice. When Torrens brought a bill
embodying his suggestions before Parliament he was laughed at. How could a
layman presume to argue that another method was easy and safe, when
experienced lawyers assured him that it would never do? But Torrens insisted
that it would do, and the South Australian Parliament, despite the opposition
of the legal members, believed him. the Real Property Act was passed in 1858,
and Torrens himself, resigning his seat in Parliament, was appointed to draw
up the regulations under it, and superintend their working. The result was
completely successful. A landowner who registered his property under the
Torrens Act received the duplicate of a certificate which the office retained;
and this was perfect evidence of his possession. If he wished to sell, the
purchaser obtained the certificate from him, and, on the sale being
registered, the change of ownership was complete; if he wished to mortgage,
the certificate was taken to the Registrar's Office, and the mortgage was
marked upon it. there was no delay, the process was cheap, and anybody could,
by paying a small fee, find out at the Registrar's Office who owned any piece
of land at any time.

The other Australian colonies very rapidly adopted
the Torrens system, and it was likewise applied in the French colonies.
Indeed, Leroy-Beaulieu, in his great treatise on Colonization among Modern
Peoples, states that such a system of land transfer is essential to the
success of a colony. He claims (vol. ii. p. 25) that the idea had a Frenchman
for its 'inventor' thirty or forty years before it was worked out by Torrens
in South Australia. It may be so; but Torrens certainly derived his idea from
his experience among shipping, as explained above, not from any book or
outside suggestion. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century labour
question began to assume an importance which they had not previously had,
though there was as yet no sign of the growth of a distant Labour Party in
Australian policies. The trade unions, in the beginning, were simply
industrial organizations, modelled on the lines of English societies of the
same kind; and, as far as concerns their original character. The earliest
record of a combination of workmen to raise wages occurred in 1847, when a
meeting of ship-owners in Sydney was held to consider the demand made by
seamen and labourers usually employed in the outfit of vessels that their wage
should be raised from 3s. to 4s. per day. The demand was resisted because it
'did not arise from scarcity of seamen or labourers, nor from inadequacy of
wages hitherto paid,' but from 'combination on the part of the men, which they
believe they can carry into effect at this important and busy season of the
year.'

But there is no clear evidence of the existence of
organized trade unions before the beginning of the gold-fields era. There was
a Masons' Society in Melbourne in 1850, but whether it was a true trade union
is not clear. In 1855, however, there were certainly unions of stone-masons
both in Sydney and Melbourne, and they adopted from a kindred society in the
same trade in Otago, New Zealand, the idea of agitating for an eight-hours
working day. The eight-hours day, like trade unionism itself, and like the
political projects of the Chartists, was an English working-class ideal. It
was adopted in nearly all trades in which there were trade unions. After 1879
there were several trade union congresses; and the fact that the first
gathering of the kind took place several years before the first inter-colonial
conference of politicians on any question of public interest is noteworthy.
The object of these congresses was primarily to consider matters of concern to
trade unions; but there were also manifestations of political tendency. thus
the congress of 1884 passed a resolution strongly favouring the payment of
members of Parliament in those colonies where the system did not yet prevail,
and one reason given for it was that it would enable the working class 'to get
proper men to represent them, men who understood and knew how to advocate
their wants.'

But the idea of working class representations was for
other than that of forming a distinct Labour Party. The unionists of the
congresses hoped at most to return a sufficient number of members of
Parliament for electorates in which there were working class majorities, to
influence legislation on advanced liberal lines. It was not till after 1890
that labour groups began to appear to distinct political factors, and not till
after the establishment of the Commonwealth that they were serious competition
for power in the political arena. The year 1890 was the pivot of the movement.
A great maritime strike occurred in that year. A steamship captain dismissed a
fireman who was a member of the Seamen's Union. the union took up the man's
cause, and a strike commenced. At about the same time a society of ship's
officers, having been unable to secure an increase of pay, and observing that
trade union methods were generally more successful than their own had been,
took steps to affiliate with the Trades Hall Council of Melbourne. To this the
ship-owners strongly objected. They required that the officers' society should
renounce the connection before consideration was given to their rates of pay.
But the society objected to its freedom to join with others being interfered
with, and refused. A strike of officers ensued; and the seamen, firemen, and
wharf-labourers decided to support them by striking also; so that the whole
shipping trade was paralysed.

The dispute rapidly spread to other trades, for the
unionists believed themselves to be face to face with an endeavour on the part
of the employers to crush the unions from which they derived protection. a
general unrest affected organized labour throughout Australia. The Shearers'
Union went on strike at the very time when the fleeces were ready to be cut.
The issue was joined between organized labour and combined capital - between
workmen who would only negotiate through their unions and objected to work
with non-unionists, and employers who maintained their right to employ 'free
labour.' The maritime strike lasted three months, and was a cause of intense
bitterness. It ended when the workmen had nearly exhausted their funds and saw
their unions brought to the verge of bankruptcy. For they were fighting a very
wealthy combination of employers, who were determined, as some of their
spokesmen said, to 'break Trades Hall domination.' But the failure of 1890
changed the character of Australian unionism, and, ultimately, of Australian
politics. The union leaders now began to preach the necessity for political
aggression. The fight must be transf3erred to the legislative chambers. The
fight must be transferred to the legislative chambers. Parliamentary action
must achieve what strikes had failed to win.

The Labour Party from the period became so aggressive
political organization with independent aims. As long as the elected
representatives were not strong enough to stand alone, they threw their weight
into the scale in favour of policies as nearly in conformity with their own
ideals as they could induce other parties to propose. Sometimes they managed
to count almost as many votes as either of the two other parties, and then
they supported the 9one which would make most concessions to them. In only one
colony did a Labour Government hoist itself into being before Federation,
namely, in Queensland, where in 1899 Anderson Dawson, the labour leader in the
Legislative Assembly, formed a Ministry which endured only a few days. But
since 1900 there have been several Labour Governments in the Commonwealth, and
in every State.

The growth of manufacturing industries naturally
brought into existence a number of laws regulating factories. Much attention
was directed to legal methods of settling disputes between employers and
workers. The Victorian Wages Board system did not, however, originate from a
desire to prevent strikes, though it has been used for that purpose, but as a
means of suppressing 'sweating' in certain industries. Under cover of
protective duties trades had sprung up in which three was fierce competition
to supply a very limited market, and the inquiries of a Commission showed that
the remuneration of labour in them was miserably low. In 1895, therefore,
Alexander Peacock, the minister respo9nsible for factory inspection in the
Ministry of the George Turner, devised the plan of giving power to the
Government to appoint a wages board for any industry in which it appeared
desirable that wages should be fixed by such an agency. A Walges Board
consisted of an equal number of members representing employers and employed
-'a jury of trade experts' -presided over by a chairman who was not interested
in the industry affected. It might fix wages, hours of labour, and piece-work
rates, and lay down rules for the conduct of the industry; and its
determinations had the force of law. The system proved successful in the
'sweated' industries, and has since been greatly extended; as that in 1923
there were 175 Wages Boards operating in Victoria. The alternative to the
Wages Board method of regulating wages and conditions of labour is the
Arbitration Court method, which has been preferred by some States. These
methods have been adopted since the rise of the Labour Party as a political
force.

Education in Australia virtually has no history till
after constitutional government was inaugurated. There were of course schools
before then, and there were inquiries and experiments, but no real educational
policy. The convict schoolmaster was at first in charge. His advertisements
may be read on early Sydney newspapers; an excellent education offered at
moderate fees; classics extra! Robert Lowe directed attention to the need for
an improvement in 1844, when a committee under his presidency reported that
more than half the children in New South Wales received no education whatever.
The establishment of a Board of National Education in 1848 brought about a
substantial improvement. But it was Henry Parkes, by the Public Schools Act of
1867, who set in operation the system which contin7ued to satisfy the demands
of the country till recent times, when fresh impulses were given to
educational effort by a radical improvement of method, a clearer perception of
aim, and a sounder system for training teachers.

The strenuous souls who fought for protection, land
reform, the ballot, and manhood suffrage in the stormy years after 1855, had
an educational ideal likewise. The educational system of the State must be
'free, compulsory, and secular.' In Victoria their policy was embodied in a
bill introduced by Wilberforce Stephen in 1872. It set up a Department of
Public Instruction, it made school attendance obligatory, it provided for
opening schools throughout the country, and it prohibited teachers from giving
other than secular instruction to the scholars. The Act, which came into force
in 1873, has had many assailants, and the educational system of Victoria has
in later years been very greatly improved, but fundamentally it remains as it
was established under Wilberforce Stephen's measure. In all the Australian
States there is provided a clear and fairly easy path for the studious youth
from the State school to the University.

Not the least of good reasons for holding the name of
Wentworth in remembrance is that he was the initiator of the movement for the
founding of the first Australian University, that of Sydney. He brought the
subject before the Legislative Council in 1849, and three years later had the
satisfaction to witness the opening of the institution. The University of
Melbourne (1853) came into being owing to the suggestion of Childers, whose
first official post was that of Inspector of Schools, and whose work in that
capacity convinced him that the corner-stone of any scheme for raising the
standard of learning in the country must be a University. Latrobe, the
Lieutenant-Governor, gave his cordial support, and when the scheme reached
fruition the first Chancellor, Redmond Barry, watched over the early fortunes
of the University of Melbourne with paternal devotion. The University of
Adelaide (1874) was the third to arise, that of Tasmania (1890) the fourth.
The Universities of Queensland (1919) and Western Australia (1911) were the
latest-born seats of the higher learning to be founded. All of them admit
women to their degrees, following the example set by Melbourne, which took
this step at the instance of the distinguished historian Charles Henry
Pearson. In 1879, Pearson, while Minister of Education of Victoria,
introduced a bill which provided that the degrees and diplomas granted by the
University should be available to both sexes. As the bill did not pass in that
year, owing to pressure of parliamentary business, the Council of the
University forthwith decided to admit women to degree courses. Pearson's bill
was introduced again in 1880 in order to remove any doubt as to the legality
of the University's action, and was passed by the legislature. Legislation for
a similar purpose was passed in respect to the University's action, and was
passed by the legislature. Legislation for a similar purpose was passed in
respect to the University of Adelaide in 1880.

All the Universities are supported by Government
grants, and some of them have also benefited from generous gifts by wealthy
citizens. The Challis bequest gave Sydney an endowment of over a quarter of
a million pounds, and the Russell bequest added an additional hundred
thousand pounds to he funds. Adelaide received nearly a hundred thousand
pounds from Sir Thomas Elder. The teaching functions have been aided by
these and other endowments, and research has been promoted not only by the
encouragement of prizes, but also under the inspiration of men whose
contributions to knowledge have won for themselves distinction and for their
Universities honour throughout the world of culture. The early student of
Melbourne who listened to the lectures of Hearn on constitutional history
sat at the feet of a master whose work was incomparably excellent in its day
and is still important. A Sydney student in later times might pursue his
work in geology under the direction of the discoverer of the south magnetic
pole, Edgeworth David; and a Melbourne student of biology might learn more
than his text books could tell him from one whose original researches have
revolutionalized a branch of anthropology, Baldwin Spencer.

Australia is an
offshoot of Europe, and its culture to European; but, in comparison with
North America, which is in the like cased, it labours under the disadvantage
of being remote from the source. During the first half-century of settlement
the sea voyage generally occupied four months, or longer if unfavourable
winds were encountered; and the discovery of a route which greatly shortened
the time did not occur until the steamship was on the point of displacing
the sailing vessel in the passenger traffic. It was in the forties of the
nineteenth century that the American naval lieutenant, M. F. Maury,
conducted his important scientific researches into the courses of winds and
currents, and showed that if captains of ships outward bound from England to
Australia, instead of running across the Indian Ocean from the Cape of good
Hope almost in a direct line, would dip down into the latitude of 48 degrees
south, they would invariably meet with strong westerly winds and long
rolling seas which would carry them forward very rapidly. By following his
route, sailing ships made astonishingly quick runs. The James Baines in 1854
ran from Liverpool to Melbourne in sixty-three days and returned by way of
Cape Horn to Liverpool in sixty-nine days, making the circuit of the globe
in one hundred and thirty-two days. The Marco Polo and other clipper ships
famous in their day cut down the old sailing time by one-half. But mariners
had only discovered how much more dependable the winds might be than their
predecessors had supposed, when steam began to enable their services to be
dispensed with. In 1856 the Peninsula and Oriental Company commenced to
trade with Australia, and in later years the Australian has come to think
himself imperfectly served if he is not able to read in Adelaide or Sydney
letters posted in England a month before. The opening of the Suez Canal in
1869 shortened the voyage between Australia and England, and the increased
traffic led naturally to improvements to the quality as well as the speed of
the service.

The submarine cable has still more closely linked up this
out-lying continent with Great Britain. There had been cable communication
between London and the East for some years before the system was extended to
Australia. In those days there was little co-operation between the
colonies. Particularist lines of policy were pursued by each of them. The
cable ought to have been a joint concern; but, failing that, the South
Australian government had the enterprise to step forward and do the
necessary connecting work. She had in her service a skilful electrician in
Charles Todd, who superintended the construction of an overland telegraph
line 1,970 miles in length, following Macdouall Stuart's track through the
centre of Australia to Port Darwin. there it was connected with a deep-sea
cable laid by an English company between Port Darwin and Java. The opening
of this line in 1871 placed Australia and London within a few hours'
communication. In 1902 another cable route was completed, linking up
Brisbane with Vancouver across the Pacific. This line is the joint property
of the Governments of Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and New Zealand.

The lack of co-operation between colonies which
for too many years regarded each other as rivals instead of partners in the
development of a great heritage had an unfortunate consequence in the era of
railway construction. Efforts were made to arrive at an agreement to build
to a common gauge, but they failed. Gladstone, while Colonial Secretary in
1846, recommended the adoption of a 4 ft. 8.1/2 in. gauge, but that was four
years before the first line from Sydney to Goulburn was constructed. There
was no railway in Victoria till after the gold diggings began, the first
length having been from Melbourne to the Port (Hobson's Bay) in 1854. The
first lines were owned by companies, but all the colonies afterwards
determined to make railway building and railway policy state concern. In
1852 New South Wales appointed an Irish engineer-in-chief, who had been
accustomed to the 5 ft. 3 in. gauge in Ireland, and who persuaded the
Government to adopt that gauge, despite the advice of the Colonial
Secretary. Victoria and South Australia, desiring to build to the same gauge
as the principal colony, decided to follow suit, and both commenced to
construct 5 ft. 3 in. railways. But meanwhile New South Wales appointed a
new engineer-in-chief, a Scotsman, who was an intense partisan of the
standard, or 4 ft. 8.1/2 in. gauge, and he left no stone unturned to bring
New South Wales back to her first love, regardless of keeping faith with the
other colonies, whose railways were now progressing with comparative
rapidity, and who had already reversed their policy once in order to keep in
line with New South Wales.' The Scotch engineer won his way, the 1852 Act
was repealed in 1855, and 'the most lamentable engineering disaster in
Australia was an accomplished fact.' (Professor W. C. Kernot, in
Proceedings of Victorian Institute of Engineers, vol. vii. p. 73.)

The result was that traffic has ever since been
incommoded and trade made costlier by a break of gauge at the border between
the two States. By 1920 there were 22,000 miles of railway in the country,
with connection between all the State capitals. The Commonwealth line from
Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie (1,051 miles) was opened in 1917, completing a
chain of lines from east to west.

An ever-increasing variety in the industries of
Australia has enlarged the possibilities of life for her people; and
improvements in agricultural methods have made country work easier and more
pleasant. Much of the rough, heartbreaking pioneer labour has been done; not
all by any means, but aids and agencies are available to the enterprising
man of the twentieth century which were not within the reach of his forbears
half a century ago. He is helped and encouraged by the State, which is the
whole community of which he is a member. Every country has its own peculiar
problems to solve, and Australia has presented many tough difficulties. They
have been attacked with the energy and the adaptability which have been the
outstanding qualities of the Anglo-Saxon colonizing genius; and the crowning
result of democratic government in these circumstances has been the creation
for the country of the passionate attachment of an intelligent and virile
people.